Christmas Letter 2009

Thanksgiving was a beautiful day up at the Douthit Ranch, with not a cloud in the sky. The rest of the week has been 100% at church getting ready for Sunday's dedication. This week's blog is our Christmas letter......for a way to cut down on paper & stamps and for all you wonderful friends who read this faithfully anyway. Have a good week & look for dedication pics next week!

Christmas Letter 2009

Greetings in the name of Christ!

The Strawn’s have had an exciting year and life with two kids seems to get better and busier as the days go by. How thankful we are for such times in our lives.

Early this year, Sarah finished up classes to become a licensed EMS Instructor, and taught her first class over the summer. At the same time, the Rescue squad in Bridgeport was breaking away from the fire department to become its own entity, so there was a flurry of activity for many months. Sarah then dropped her membership from the FD, focusing on EMS, her first love, & the new department.

The week before Holy Week, the church decided to have a ground breaking for the long awaited building project. Pastor and a trustee put in several late night hours moving offices, tearing up old wood floors, and saving anything that could be saved in the old parsonage, as razing that building was now imminent. Construction of the new building started immediately. Pastor sat on the new building committee as many decisions needed to be made over the course of the next 9 months. How appropriate now that the new sanctuary is dedicated the first Sunday of the Church Year, complete with a Reredos & Predella made from the old wood floors. Many more late night hours were put into those projects with that same trustee.

In May, Sarah’s parents came to visit & we took a weekend camping trip to S. Dakota in the

new camper. In August, Al’s parents came to visit with their new Stallion Trike. With it being the week of Sturgis, Al & Dad took a day to drive up and saw the bikes there. What a time they had! The rest of the summer was filled with teaching, building, going to the race track & Pastor’s Con Ed. Throw in an LWML trip to Oregon for Al and you have summer gone by quickly.

Eden turned 4 in August and started preschool soon after. Lars turned 2 in September. Just before his second b-day, we learned that Lars has several food allergies and the crying since his birth has mostly been about that. It was essentially eating away his intestinal track & causing pain after every meal. So, as if we didn’t have enough going at the time, we went through the cupboards & threw away or donated nearly everything, then started over. It has been a long learning process & making two meals every meal was daunting at first, but Mom is getting better at it. He also has Speech Therapy & Occupational Therapy two mornings each week.

The gardens produced wonderfully this year & Sarah canned over 100 jars of food. We also traded or sold both vehicles to buy newer & more economical transportation, which has paid off already in fuel. The Bport Garden Club asked Sarah to have the parsonage be one of six homes featured in this year’s Christmas Parade of Homes, so that’s been another exciting & busy activity to prepare for. We are all busy, but still have time to bake cookies & read stories pretty much whenever we want.

We hope this finds you well & healthy. May God bless you abundantly~

Allen, Sarah, Eden, Lars & Baby due in May